Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d consider it a bonus that the A- didn’t go into SIS as a B (3) which has been the case in some of DCs classes when they were using a 4.0 scale and teachers wouldn’t “round up”.

Kids have enough to worry about. Extra points for an A+ is unnecessary pressure.

OP here.

An A- in Fairfax County is 90-93%. And it is counted as 3.7 instead of a 4.0. So even if your kid gets legit As, they only get a 3.7 if they are at 92%.

It should be counted as a 4.0. I am not obsessing about the GPA- I don’t I think it’s unfair that a legitimate A (say 92%) gets punished, whileas all of the other grades get pluses.

Get rid of it completely. It’s unfair. Your kid has no idea that their GPA is not a 4.0 even though they are getting a solid 92% in all of their grades. That should be an A. The whole plus and minus thing is BS. Colleges don’t adjust because everywhere else there are A plusses. So we end up having kids with grade deflation.

Either give the option to get an A+ or get rid of the minuses and the pluses. Or use a % number instead.

And yes: you would be obsessed if your straight A student has a 3.7 GPA. It’s bs.

A 92% was a B+ when I graduated from my FCPS high school. Should they just go back to that to make you feel better? Or if you just tell yourself an A- means your kid is no longer a straight A student?

I mean this is like saying calling a grade below D an "E" so that it's not "F" for failure matters. You're arguing with the school system about semantics! A 92% isn't a 4.0. That's how it's been for a long, long time.

Correct!

When I was in FCPS HS:

94-100 = A
90-93 = B+
84-89= B
80-83 = C+
74-79 = C
70-73 = D+
64-69 = D
0-63 = F

There were no retakes, no late work allowed, and no 50% minimum required.

Honors classes got a 0.0 boost (AKA "no GPA boost") and AP classes got a 0.5 GPA boost.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it's gonna be ok. Promise.

Life will go on and your kid is gonna get into a school. Life isn't "fair." But an A-, anyway you shake it, means your kid is getting some good grades. Be thankful for that!

I'm not the OP, but I get where he/she is coming from. When your kid has their heart set on a certain school, and they know that in order to get in, you need the highest GPA possible, you want to make sure that the grades they're getting are judged fairly in relation to all of the other millions overachieving kids applying to the same school. At those schools, they're competing against kids with 5.0 GPAs, 1590 SAT scores, academic research, passion projects, founding leader of club, etc.

So an A- could mean your kid isn't getting in.

I don't think transcripts include numerical grades, right, so how do colleges fairly compare one academic performance to another?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, it's gonna be ok. Promise.

Life will go on and your kid is gonna get into a school. Life isn't "fair." But an A-, anyway you shake it, means your kid is getting some good grades. Be thankful for that!

I'm not the OP, but I get where he/she is coming from. When your kid has their heart set on a certain school, and they know that in order to get in, you need the highest GPA possible, you want to make sure that the grades they're getting are judged fairly in relation to all of the other millions overachieving kids applying to the same school. At those schools, they're competing against kids with 5.0 GPAs, 1590 SAT scores, academic research, passion projects, founding leader of club, etc.

So an A- could mean your kid isn't getting in.

I don't think transcripts include numerical grades, right, so how do colleges fairly compare one academic performance to another?

Anonymous wrote:OP, it's gonna be ok. Promise.

Life will go on and your kid is gonna get into a school. Life isn't "fair." But an A-, anyway you shake it, means your kid is getting some good grades. Be thankful for that!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather just report numbers. Kid got an 89.4

If we did that, I wouldn't have 14 emails asking me to "please just bump up the grade a little" or "can I please have some extra credit?" at the end of every year.

But at the end of the day, colleges all recalculate anyway. If it's that important, the year isn't over yet, work towards getting it up to a 92.5 so it rounds up to an A.

Why on earth would you round up? The threshold for getting an A is 93%. Did the 92.5% student reach that threshold? No, than s/he gets an A-.

It is how the gradebook in FCPS is set automatically. 92.4 = A-, 92.5 = A. It's the same for all grades (88.4/88.5, etc)

--FCPS teacher

but if they have 59% now they will ask up to round up to D-. it used to be 61-62% average..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather just report numbers. Kid got an 89.4

If we did that, I wouldn't have 14 emails asking me to "please just bump up the grade a little" or "can I please have some extra credit?" at the end of every year.

But at the end of the day, colleges all recalculate anyway. If it's that important, the year isn't over yet, work towards getting it up to a 92.5 so it rounds up to an A.

Why on earth would you round up? The threshold for getting an A is 93%. Did the 92.5% student reach that threshold? No, than s/he gets an A-.

It is how the gradebook in FCPS is set automatically. 92.4 = A-, 92.5 = A. It's the same for all grades (88.4/88.5, etc)

--FCPS teacher

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d consider it a bonus that the A- didn’t go into SIS as a B (3) which has been the case in some of DCs classes when they were using a 4.0 scale and teachers wouldn’t “round up”.

Kids have enough to worry about. Extra points for an A+ is unnecessary pressure.

OP here.

An A- in Fairfax County is 90-93%. And it is counted as 3.7 instead of a 4.0. So even if your kid gets legit As, they only get a 3.7 if they are at 92%.

It should be counted as a 4.0. I am not obsessing about the GPA- I don’t I think it’s unfair that a legitimate A (say 92%) gets punished, whileas all of the other grades get pluses.

Get rid of it completely. It’s unfair. Your kid has no idea that their GPA is not a 4.0 even though they are getting a solid 92% in all of their grades. That should be an A. The whole plus and minus thing is BS. Colleges don’t adjust because everywhere else there are A plusses. So we end up having kids with grade deflation.

Either give the option to get an A+ or get rid of the minuses and the pluses. Or use a % number instead.

And yes: you would be obsessed if your straight A student has a 3.7 GPA. It’s bs.

A 92% was a B+ when I graduated from my FCPS high school. Should they just go back to that to make you feel better? Or if you just tell yourself an A- means your kid is no longer a straight A student?

I mean this is like saying calling a grade below D an "E" so that it's not "F" for failure matters. You're arguing with the school system about semantics! A 92% isn't a 4.0. That's how it's been for a long, long time.

Correct!

When I was in FCPS HS:

94-100 = A
90-93 = B+
84-89= B
80-83 = C+
74-79 = C
70-73 = D+
64-69 = D
0-63 = F

There were no retakes, no late work allowed, and no 50% minimum required.

Honors classes got a 0.0 boost (AKA "no GPA boost") and AP classes got a 0.5 GPA boost.

PP you quoted here. The last sentence was just TJ, right? Or did TJ just hang onto that scale longer than every other FCPS school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather just report numbers. Kid got an 89.4

If we did that, I wouldn't have 14 emails asking me to "please just bump up the grade a little" or "can I please have some extra credit?" at the end of every year.

But at the end of the day, colleges all recalculate anyway. If it's that important, the year isn't over yet, work towards getting it up to a 92.5 so it rounds up to an A.

Why on earth would you round up? The threshold for getting an A is 93%. Did the 92.5% student reach that threshold? No, than s/he gets an A-.

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather just report numbers. Kid got an 89.4

If we did that, I wouldn't have 14 emails asking me to "please just bump up the grade a little" or "can I please have some extra credit?" at the end of every year.

But at the end of the day, colleges all recalculate anyway. If it's that important, the year isn't over yet, work towards getting it up to a 92.5 so it rounds up to an A.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d consider it a bonus that the A- didn’t go into SIS as a B (3) which has been the case in some of DCs classes when they were using a 4.0 scale and teachers wouldn’t “round up”.

Kids have enough to worry about. Extra points for an A+ is unnecessary pressure.

OP here.

An A- in Fairfax County is 90-93%. And it is counted as 3.7 instead of a 4.0. So even if your kid gets legit As, they only get a 3.7 if they are at 92%.

It should be counted as a 4.0. I am not obsessing about the GPA- I don’t I think it’s unfair that a legitimate A (say 92%) gets punished, whileas all of the other grades get pluses.

Get rid of it completely. It’s unfair. Your kid has no idea that their GPA is not a 4.0 even though they are getting a solid 92% in all of their grades. That should be an A. The whole plus and minus thing is BS. Colleges don’t adjust because everywhere else there are A plusses. So we end up having kids with grade deflation.

Either give the option to get an A+ or get rid of the minuses and the pluses. Or use a % number instead.

And yes: you would be obsessed if your straight A student has a 3.7 GPA. It’s bs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d consider it a bonus that the A- didn’t go into SIS as a B (3) which has been the case in some of DCs classes when they were using a 4.0 scale and teachers wouldn’t “round up”.

Kids have enough to worry about. Extra points for an A+ is unnecessary pressure.

OP here.

An A- in Fairfax County is 90-93%. And it is counted as 3.7 instead of a 4.0. So even if your kid gets legit As, they only get a 3.7 if they are at 92%.

It should be counted as a 4.0. I am not obsessing about the GPA- I don’t I think it’s unfair that a legitimate A (say 92%) gets punished, whileas all of the other grades get pluses.

Get rid of it completely. It’s unfair. Your kid has no idea that their GPA is not a 4.0 even though they are getting a solid 92% in all of their grades. That should be an A. The whole plus and minus thing is BS. Colleges don’t adjust because everywhere else there are A plusses. So we end up having kids with grade deflation.

Either give the option to get an A+ or get rid of the minuses and the pluses. Or use a % number instead.

And yes: you would be obsessed if your straight A student has a 3.7 GPA. It’s bs.

A 92% was a B+ when I graduated from my FCPS high school. Should they just go back to that to make you feel better? Or if you just tell yourself an A- means your kid is no longer a straight A student?

I mean this is like saying calling a grade below D an "E" so that it's not "F" for failure matters. You're arguing with the school system about semantics! A 92% isn't a 4.0. That's how it's been for a long, long time.

Correct!

When I was in FCPS HS:

94-100 = A
90-93 = B+
84-89= B
80-83 = C+
74-79 = C
70-73 = D+
64-69 = D
0-63 = F

There were no retakes, no late work allowed, and no 50% minimum required.

Honors classes got a 0.0 boost (AKA "no GPA boost") and AP classes got a 0.5 GPA boost.